In the 1970's computer motion control became consumer practical because of the advance of micro processing and decrease of price. The joystick developed by Atari described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,349,708 could be used to control the movement of computer generated object on a computer monitor. A typical use for joysticks involves two operators playing a video game displayed on a monitor, each operator using its own joystick to move objects and on the computer monitor. The joysticks are connected to a computer, including, among other components, a processor, dynamic and static memory, an operating system, and necessary software programming to interpret the movement of the joystick to control the motion of objects on the computer monitor. Such computer generated objects can be considered “virtual” objects herein. Other devices for motion control of virtual objects include track balls, computer mouses, trackpads and the computer keyboard. In all of these controllers, the user is in intimate physical contact with the controller during its use. Use of such controllers has not been limited to controlling virtual objects. They are also used to move physical objects. Joysticks are used to control objects such as wheel chairs, industrial cranes and equipment among others.
Computer keyboards, track balls and joysticks require an operator to manipulate a physical control device to move a virtual object or physical object. Gesture or touchless control allows an operator to interact with a virtual object or physical object without coming into contact with a control device. Gesture control of virtual and physical objects is the subject of much research and development. Theses gesture controlled systems are gaining in popularity and it is believed will soon be ubiquitous in many industries and even in areas of domestic life. Already gesture control is employed in “smart” televisions and gaming systems (such as Microsoft's Kinect™ system). U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,106,749 and 8,316,324 describe gesture control of objects. Companies such as Leap Motion, Inc. (USA), Pointgrab Ltd. (Israel), zSpace, Inc. (USA), and Microsoft Corporation (USA) have developed gesture control software and hardware. Leap Motion's U.S. Patent Application 2013/0182902 describes capturing motion in 3 dimensional space. The system described is merely an example of a type of gesture controller, and the present invention is independent of the method used to detect any motion control. The present disclosure does not seek to develop methodology for the recognition of gestures and the conversion of those gestures to manipulations of virtual objects or physical objects. Instead, in some embodiments, the present disclosure advances the art by acknowledging the need for and providing apparatus and methods implementing safety measures when manipulating an object through the use of multiple gesture controllers. In other embodiments, the present disclosure provides novel apparatus and methodologies for manipulation of virtual objects or physical objects through gesture controllers. The 3D space will be referred to as the sensing field.